Kisses that didn't count
by thesmokinggnu
Summary: Quinn rationalised like she always did, reasoning that if it only happened once then it didn't count, not really. Except then it happened again and suddenly that excuse didn't work anymore. Quinntana/Brittana


_She rationalised like she always did, reasoning that if it only happened once then it didn't count, not really. Except then it happened again and suddenly that excuse didn't work anymore._

The first time was Brittany's fault.

"Santana, I dare you to kiss Q." The two girls swivelled as one to stare at Brittany who was sitting cross legged smiling mischievously.

"What?"

"Oh hell no!" Quinn's voice was disbelieving, Santana actually sounded offended.

"Why not? I know you've both kissed guys before and it's basically the same because there isn't any plumbing involved and you two actually like one another and San told me she thought Kevin was a douche and he is her boyfriend." She was pouting, this was bad. Neither of them could say no to her when she pushed her bottom lip out like that.

Santana opened her mouth then closed it again when Quinn nudged her. The blonde felt this situation called for more tact than she had come to expect from Santana. "Exactly Britt, a dare is supposed to be something hard or really gross otherwise what's the point? Like when you made me eat cat food."

Brittany grinned remembering. "Lord Tubbington will be so mad when he finds out. Tuna and jellied eel is his favourite." At this Quinn turned pale green and bolted for the bathroom, while Santana was dispatched to climb the tree outside Brittany's house dressed in the duck costume the dancer had worn the previous Halloween, complete with flippers and actual feathers.

Two hours later and Quinn was sitting on Brittany's couch with one leg curled underneath her watching Santana trying to outstare Lord Tubbington.

"Give up Tana; accept that Kitty Kong has you beat."

Santana didn't turn her head, just glowered. "Sorry what was that Q? I was distracted I think you still have some jellied eel on your face."

"Just because you would have been too grossed out to do it."

"Which brings me to ask; how come you are down with eating blended, dead, sea creatures but kissing me is 'icky'? Anyone less secure in their own smokin' hotness could take offence."

"Come on, you know it wasn't like that. We're both girls - it would be weird." She tried to sound casual, but one hand crept up touch the crucifix around her neck, an action which wasn't lost on Santana.

"Oh don't try and pin this on Jesus, you're just worried I'll tell people you're a bad kisser. Or frigid."

"I am not frigid!"

"See, the thing is you're talking, but all I'm hearing are Hail Marys. I can practically smell your repression."

"Drop it Santana. I am not repressed, just celibate - there is nothing wrong with waiting. And that still leaves a lot open." She didn't mean for it to sound like that, really she didn't, but it was already too late. Santana's eyes widened in surprise and the corner of her lip curled.

"Oh yeah? So this should be fine then." In a flash she crossed the room and bent down to kiss the self-righteous expression off Quinn's face while one hand slipped round to tangle in her hair. The blonde girl's mind seemed to have gone blank despite the kiss being relatively chaste - all she could think about was how soft the other girl's lips were, and although she was yelling at her arms to push the Latina off her they didn't seem to be responding. Then a voice sounded from the doorway and Santana's lips vanished.

"See, I knew I wasn't the only one who was bi-polar." Brittany beamed as she scooped up her enormous cat and left to read him his bedtime story, leaving a smug looking Santana and a slightly shell shocked Quinn in her wake.

* * *

The second time was the day Quinn's life changed forever. The cloying taste of the wine coolers was still heavy on her tongue as she stood on the sidewalk in the fading summer evening. He had tried to persuade her to stay, most probably out of guilt once he saw how drunk she really was. He waited still in the lit doorway watching as her clumsy fingers scrolled through the numbers on her phone. She knew even through the fuzzy haze clouding her brain that she couldn't go home, not like this, and calling Finn was out of the question. The conversation was brief and she hung up without explanation, hoping that if friendship wasn't enough than curiosity would be. At least that was what she told herself. But how could she begin to explain something that didn't even make sense in her own head?

Once she hung up she began walking, because she couldn't bear just to stand there and wait. She could feel his eyes following her then the slap of bare feet on concrete, but he was careful to keep his distance. Only now did he find it in himself to be considerate.

When the car pulled up to the sidewalk she didn't turn around, she didn't want to see the concern on his face, just nodded to the girl in the driving seat. She tried to smile her thanks but Santana didn't respond so she supposed it must have got lost somewhere on the way from her brain to her mouth. Like all the rest of her good intentions, she thought bitterly. Neither of them spoke as they drove quickly through the deserted streets, and although she could feel Santana's curious eyes upon her she remained unmoving, mouth pressed in a thin line as she stared resolutely out the front window. Santana didn't ask questions, just guided her gently through the front door and caught her when she stumbled on the bottom step.

It wasn't until they were upstairs with the weight of the silence pressing down on them that the tears began to fall, her makeup staining her cheeks with inky tracks. She gasped out between sobs something that was half explanation half apology, unable to distinguish in the moment between her friend standing before her and the naive smile on the face of her boyfriend that she saw in her mind.

She felt sick to her stomach. All the fine words and sermons, all her high walls, what did they count if they fell at the first taste of fruity alcohol and the heat of summer? Then she felt strong arms wrap around her, bearing her down with sweet breath whispering against her neck. She turned and buried her face in the other girl's shoulder focussing on the scent of coconut shampoo and forcing her breathing to slow down.

A hand rubbed reassuring circles on her back as she stared at the swirling patterns on the bed clothes, forcing to the back of her mind anything outside dark purple spirals on white unstained cotton beneath her fingers. Eventually her shoulders stopped shaking and her tears ran out leaving behind a small damp spot on Santana's shirt, and her thoughts immediately turned to damage control. She wouldn't put it past the other girl to use something like this against her, and her mind jumped suddenly to a certain secret of Santana's..._ No_. She wouldn't resort to that. Surely Santana wouldn't make her.

She raised herself on one elbow, looking straight into dark eyes that were carefully blank. "No-one can know about this."

"Believe it or not Fabray, this is really not something I want to broadcast. I mean I have a reputation to think of." Santana's voice was mild, conveying nothing of the hurt she wished she didn't feel at the implication that the girl she considered her best friend didn't trust her. Because that was what they were, and many things besides, although neither of them liked to admit it. But she knew Quinn saw it anyway. When it came to Santana the blonde girl has always seen more than anyone else, more than anyone should.

Quinn wanted so badly to thank her then, gratitude welling beneath the shame in her chest, for not telling, for not asking questions, for the grape coloured stain that had appeared mysteriously the day before on the uniform of one of the seniors who thought she would do a better job leading the Cheerios. But her throat seemed to have seized up. Instead she did the only other thing available to her, and in that second it seemed the most natural thing in the world to press their lips together as they lay tangled upon the single bed beneath the cheerleading posters and smiling photographs lining the walls. It could only have been a few seconds, but it seemed like far longer. It must be the wine coolers.

She shook her head slightly to clear it then lay back down feeling suddenly exhausted. She shuffled backwards until they were lying flush together and closed her eyes, parted lips slightly pink from lip gloss that wasn't hers.

When she awoke the following morning she had forgotten all about it. Santana was still asleep, and she could feel the rise and fall of her chest against her back. Silently extricating herself from the arms wrapped possessively around her she tiptoed to retrieve her shoes from where she had kicked them off. She knew questions would follow, and she felt embarrassed about her vulnerability; it had been so long since anyone had seen anything other than the hard polished exterior that was all the rest of the world was permitted to see.

She was halfway home before she paused suddenly on the sidewalk and brushed her lips with her fingertips recalling the soft pressure and tasting the strawberry and dental floss combination that was uniquely Santana.

It was two months later when the whole school found out she was pregnant and she fell first from the top of the pyramid and then so much further. It was the sneer on the face of the girl who she could only admit to even liking under cover of darkness that hurt so much more than Coach Sylvester's disappointment and Finn's rejection. It was the way chocolate brown eyes slid over her uncaring as they passed in the corridors, and cool indifference when they were forced to interact with each other that made something constrict in her chest, like the ghosts of the arms that had once held her tightly and she had never previously valued enough to miss.

* * *

The third time she was vulnerable.

Quinn woke up early on the morning after the disastrous Regionals competition. She had been so exhausted, both physically and emotionally, that she was already halfway gone by the time the rest of the Glee club descended all trying to hug and congratulate her at the same time. Conveniently they all seemed to have forgotten that they didn't really like her all that much. The drugs had done the rest. A nurse shooed the rowdy teenagers from the room and gently lifted Beth from her unresisting arms as her head drooped sideways onto the pillow. She had hung on long enough to be reassured that they weren't taking her baby, not yet, before she let sleep claim her.

The sun was shining, which at least was something, she thought. Her mother was nowhere to be seen, and the Duty Nurse informed her upon noticing that she was awake that Judy had gone home for the night. The shadow from the potted plant on the windowsill slid slowly down the opposite wall and she listened to the reassuring hum of the hospital slowly stirring into life, toying idly with the small silver crucifix around her neck.

It was gracing the top of the skirting board by the time she heard quick footsteps in the corridor outside. From an hour with nothing to do but listen she could already tell they didn't belong to the nurse or the doctor on call. Quinn heard them track to the nurses' station, then the murmur of voices in muffled argument. The visitor apparently won and she suddenly felt a stab of fear as the clack of heels on vinyl grew louder approaching her door. Visiting wasn't allowed until nine o'clock; surely they weren't taking Beth already?

The door opened and a familiar pair of skinny jeans and sneakers entered preceded inexplicably by a large blue balloon which proclaimed proudly 'It's a boy!' Santana waited until the nurse had gone, exiting the room with a warning expression, before moving to stand beside the head of the bed. She didn't sit down, or even take off her jacket, and Quinn knew that this was as close as Santana got to awkward.

She gestured to the balloon bobbing against the string where she had tied it to the foot of the bed. "Oh yeah, I couldn't find one that said girl, but you know all babies basically look the same at that age, so, whatever..."

"What are you doing here Santana?"

"My Dad's working the morning shift today so he kinda smuggled me in."

"That's not what I meant. You've spent all year treating me like some kind of leper, and now you just come swanning in with a balloon – which I'm still not convinced isn't just an unimaginative insult – and expect everything to be ok again?" Her voice was still to hoarse to shout, but they both knew with Quinn it was when she spoke softly that you had to be worried. Santana's defence mechanism kicked in.

"Why, what else do you want? A cake maybe, or a mariachi band? Actually I could probably get you cable if you like, I have connections in this place."

"Look Santana, you've made your point - whatever the hell it was – so if you could just take your ass elsewhere and let me get some sleep that would be great. You can find the door by yourself can't you?"

She had taken a lot of crap over the past year, buffeted around from one house to another like the charity case she was, from one set of supposed friends to another, from the president of the celibacy club to the dumb cheerleader who managed to get herself knocked up. Her father would probably never speak to her again, and sometime today or tomorrow she would have to watch another woman walk off with her daughter, and there was nothing she could do about either of those things. One thing she could do however was tell Santana Lopez to get lost.

The other girl studied her thoughtfully for a long moment but made no move to leave. "I'm sorry."

Quinn looked up in surprise. It was a muttered sentence directed somewhere over the blonde girl's shoulder to the fake geranium on the windowsill, but coming from her it was practically heartfelt confession of guilt. They both knew that she didn't have an apologetic bone in her body, and receiving one sincerely made Quinn one of probably only two people, with the exception of Santana's parents and her formidable grandmother.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that." She replied coldly; Quinn had no intention of letting her off that easily.

Santana groaned theatrically. "Come on Q are you really going to make me repeat it? You're killing me here."

"Do not talk to me about pain Lopez, not after I just pushed 6lbs and 4ozs out of my vagina!"

Pouty lips dropped into a perfect 'o' of astonishment. "Damn, Quinnocence, did you push that stick out of your ass as well? If this is your maternal side then me gusta mucho."

"Yeah, well you'd better make the most of it. Shelby's going to pick her up today. Beth, I mean." This time it was Quinn who looked away as her anger evaporated as quickly as it arrived, feeling the sting of tears pricking the corner of her eyes.

Santana only hesitated for a moment before shrugging gracefully out of her jacket and swinging her legs up onto the bed uninvited so they were lying side by side.

"Beth huh? Were all the funky puritan names taken?"

"Oh shut up."

Santana sighed. How was it that this one girl with her stupid baby adoption and stupid blonde hair could make her feel bad when she could count the number of times she had cried (sober) since the age of ten on the fingers of one hand?

"Look, I would apologise, again, but I wasn't kidding when I said two in a row might finish me off." She sighed when she saw Quinn still staring at the opposite wall like she was trying to see though it, hazel eyes glistening, refusing to look at the girl next to her. Ok then, plan B.

"Just so you know, you have driven me to this."

Quinn turned then, eyebrows knitted together in confusion and Santana pounced. She kissed her firmly, cupping the blonde girl's face in her hands and tried to convey all the shame and regret and anger at herself for doing the easy thing and walking away, when she should have stayed if only to help break her fall. Santana wasn't really one for dramatic speeches, but if a picture spoke a thousand words, then a bit of tongue was like Goddamn War and Peace. When they broke apart, Quinn flushed and slightly dazed looking, Santana hushed her before she could speak.

"Listen I know I've been a pretty crappy friend, but I won't just leave like that again. I mean we'll probably fall out and stuff because let's face it you're not exactly lacking in the annoying qualities department, and those Grandma cardigans you wear cause me to die a little inside, but what I'm saying is you'll have to hate me from close up because I'm not going anywhere, ok?"

Quinn sniffed and nodded and wiped her nose on Santana's top, she took to be agreement.

They stayed there for the best part of an hour watching cartoons in silence, canned laughter too loud in the small room. Santana rose to leave eventually citing that she was too badass to be there during legitimate visiting hours, although Quinn suspected it was more to do with the impending arrival of Judy Fabray and any particularly dedicated members of New Directions. She left shortly before nine with a box of chocolates from Quinn's bedside table tucked under her arm, because apparently she was taking their duct taped sort-of-friendship seriously by helping her shed the baby weight as soon as possible. She did leave the balloon though.

* * *

The fourth time it didn't end with a kiss. It was a Friday, after Miss Holliday had once again waltzed off into the sunset much the way Quinn herself dreamed of doing, except obviously without the tight pants and fuck me heels which were more Santana's area of expertise anyway.

The former head cheerleader was probably the only person not to be surprised in the slightest watching her two best friends sub textually declaring their love for one another. Well, she wasn't surprised at the existence of their feelings. What shocked her was the raw vulnerability of her kind-of-best-friend-kind-of-worst-enemy as she sang to Brittany: that Santana with all the openness and approachability of a cactus had laid herself bare like that for all to see. It scared the hell out of her.

She had known, of course she had, being as she was in possession of two eyes and multiple brain cells. If asked she wouldn't have been able to say when it started, only that it had been so long and become so normal to her that they seemed more natural together than not. She had denied it for a long time, because everything her father and God and her mother's dinner party guests had to say about that sort of thing just refused to reconcile itself with the two girls she knew almost as well as she knew herself. It didn't help that she knew to label them and therefore condemn them would be damning herself, because no matter how many football players she dated it didn't change the fact that she had kissed Santana (or the other way around) on three occasions now, despite vowing each time that it would be the last.

Well, she had vowed. Santana had laughed and told her to have fun in Narnia.

So the charade had continued; Quinn never asked because when she said she didn't want to know she meant it, preferring to look the other way whenever the touches between them lingered a beat too long for 'just good friends'. She stayed though, because she knew Santana would if it were the other way around, and because it meant something that they still tried to include her.

Meanwhile the other two carried on as they had always been, safe inside their red and white polyester armour, and she had learned not to linger in the locker room after Cheerios practice, ignoring Santana's nod of appreciation as she shooed the others out before her. She began making up excuses when they invited her to sleepovers though, because she was tired of sleeping on the floor with a pillow over her head, singing in her head at the top of her voice to drown the definitely-not-sleeping noises coming from the bed when they thought she was asleep.

It was approaching midnight when her phone rang. Her mother was out of town for the weekend in Seattle attending the wedding of some people that Quinn didn't know and had no desire to. Still guilty about abandoning her daughter the previous year Judy hadn't pushed it, leaving instead money on the counter (the divorce payout had been generous) and a quick kiss on the forehead as she left for the airport.

Now Quinn was in her car wearing sneakers and a hoodie she had thrown on hastily over her pyjamas. The steady thrumming of rain on the windshield all but drowned out the radio as she slowed down turning into a deserted parking lot of the Lima Bean. The headlamps died when she turned off the engine and she sat still for a moment waiting for her eyes to adjust.

The knock on her window when it came scared the shit out of her. It took her almost a full minute to gather herself, one hand fumbling for the mace lying ready on the passenger seat, and realise it was Santana standing there in the dark and rain with her hair bedraggled and dark smudges below her eyes from her eyeliner. She climbed out of the car and they stood together in the downpour; even from a metre away the blonde could smell the alcohol on her breath. For a moment Quinn was speechless; her words falling away and she cursed herself for not bothering to ask, for being too wrapped even to check if she was alright because even after all these years Quinn just assumed she would be.

Her eyes travelled from the bottle held loosely in Santana's left hand to the SUV she could just make out under the streetlamp with a familiar dent in the back bumper. Some of the tension dropped from her shoulders then as the shadowy images of dark alleyways and hooded figures that had haunted her since she hung up the phone retreated; Santana had obviously just gotten too drunk to drive herself home. Quinn remembered that Brittany only lived a couple of streets away, and then with a jolt that she had seen Britt pushing Artie to his mom's car after school. Suddenly things made a whole lot more sense.

Snapping back to the present she yanked the back door open and guided Santana into the car's warm interior. She was about to straighten up to retrieve a blanket she was fairly sure she had in the trunk when strong arms wound around her neck and pulled her down so she was lying half on the back seat with the other girl underneath her.

"Santana what the -" She didn't even get the chance to finish as full lips crashed against her own and she tasted vodka and cigarette smoke as a tongue invaded her mouth taking advantage of her surprise. The clunk of Santana hooking the door closed expertly with her foot jolted Quinn back to her senses and she pulled back. For a second they both paused breathing heavily in the dark. Then she felt deft fingers around her hips tugging insistently at the hem of her sweatshirt. She grabbed the Santana's wrists and just stared at her, refusing to believe where this was going.

"What are you doing, what about Brit -?"

"Brittany doesn't care." Sanatana's eyes were defiant despite the tears mixing with the raindrops as they rolled down her cheeks. "I told her, told her everything and she still chose him. I told her I loved her and it didn't matter. But it should shouldn't it? It should make a difference when someone loves you."

Her voice broke as she finished speaking and Quinn did the only thing she could think of because she needed Santana to stop crying because this wasn't how it was supposed to go. Santana was the strong one, the solidity that Quinn needed to run into again and again and who would then pick her up and put her back on her feet. She wasn't supposed to break. Neither of them were. She'd imagined junior year her whole life and nowhere featured the wet asphalt of the parking lot or the steamed up windows of the car bought for her by a father who no longer acknowledged her existence. The back of her throat burned with cheap vodka in place of white wine and sparking champagne while her boyfriend longed for brown eyes instead of the hazel he'd always told her was so pretty.

So she didn't object this time when hands slipped under the tank top she'd worn to bed and Santana flipped them pressing her down. She didn't care that brown eyes darkened by lust and alcohol were picturing a different blonde because she too needed something give her release, if just for a second from the 6lb and 4oz millstone around her neck. She didn't stop the moan in her throat when nimble fingers made short work of the fastenings on her jeans and their bare skin finally touched, because Brittany was with Artie and Shelby had Beth and because Santana was the one who forgave her mistakes because she was guilty of all the same ones.

* * *

The fifth time was in New York.

Nationals were a disaster. Mr Schue was staying, Rachel and Finn had singlehandedly managed to send the New Directions the way of the Titanic, and now she was trying desperately to hold back Santana when all she really wanted to do herself was beat Rachel Berry about the head with own rhyming dictionary. But Santana wasn't actually half bad at cutting hair and Quinn did owe her one, so she was being the bigger person and returning the favour by stopping Santana getting herself suspended. Eventually with the help of Sam and Puck they hauled her outside, and Quinn dragged her into the bathroom to cool off. She was now standing – without backup because Brittany hated confrontation – in front of a furious Santana, blocking the door and waiting for her to calm down enough to remember that Quinn didn't speak Spanish and had no idea what the hell she was saying. Although the words 'puta' and 'Berry' gave her a vague idea.

"What the hell Q, why did you stop me? Because I know you totally wanted to beat the crap out of her as well."

"Hey, I just stopped you from getting suspended! Besides even if you had gotten passed me I'd like to know your plan for beating the seven foot Quarterback."

"Oh please Barbie, in Lima Heights Adjacent -"

"You don't live in Lima Heights Adjacent!"

Santana seemed thrown for a second, but recovered quickly. "Yeah well anyways, I could have taken Moby Dick with my eyes closed. There is a reason the football team are complete crap."

"Ok listen, not that this isn't fun Santana, but we have one night left in New York and I really do not want to spend it moping in a bathroom with you. So will you please calm down and - I don't know - we can go to the bar with Puckerman and his fake id or something." She was desperately trying to think of something to distract the other girl from her thoughts of homicide.

Santana stared at her in disbelief. "Are you serious? Since when are you voluntarily getting drunk with the last of the Mohawks? Does Shelby have a spare room or something?"

Quinn glared at her. "I just thought it might stop you trying to murder Berry. I'd like to see you try and go all Lima Heights whilst sobbing hysterically."

Santana scowled. She knew she could be slightly over-emotional when drunk but it wasn't something she liked to be reminded of. "Really? Because there are other ways of calming me down Quinn, that wouldn't involve risking arrest." She stalked towards the blonde girl who recognised the look in her eyes and stepped back uncertainly.

"Uh uh, no way Lopez. Don't even think about it."

Quinn dodged around the other girl, leaving the door unguarded: being Berry's bodyguard was rapidly sliding down her list of priorities because Santana was walking towards her wearing that smirk which meant only one thing. She felt butterflies jump suddenly in her stomach and tried to tell herself that this was at least an improvement on angry murderous Santana. The porcelain of the sink was digging into her lower back and the Santana's hips pressed against her own keeping her there. Quinn's eyes darted to the door again praying that no-one would come looking for them.

They had never actually spoken about the whole car thing; when they were both capable of moving again she had driven Santana home and watched her go in, the other girl turning only once to nod before she closed the door. They had never acknowledged it had happened and she had pushed it out of her mind following the debacle that was prom and then Finn leaving her for Rachel, again. It was only sometimes when she braked at stop lights and heard the sloshing of a mostly empty bottle rolling around somewhere under the seat that she remembered the feel of smooth tanned skin under her fingers, and blushed slightly waiting for the green light and thinking about the now faded bruises on her neck and shoulder.

Except here they were again.

Santana's lips brushed her collarbone tracing a line up to her jaw. Once again Quinn was frozen because there was just something about Santana that made her mind feel woolly, like the normal rules of Quinn's logic didn't quite fit around her. Their breathing echoed in the empty bathroom and Quinn turned her head so she could watch the door, which also happened to give Santana better access to her neck. Which is why she was forced to watch as though in slow motion as the door opened and Brittany stepped through and froze seeing her pressed up against the counter with Santana's arms resting either side of her and Santana's lips busy mapping the pale unmarked skin of her neck.

Santana whipped around hearing the door open and leaped away from Quinn like she had been shocked; staring at the girl in the doorway with an expression of such guilt on her face that something pulled suddenly in Quinn's chest. She felt dirty.

"I thought San might be upset so I went to get the gummy bears I brought. I was kind of saving them 'til we won but I thought they might make her feel better. It's ok though, that makes her feel better as well. Umm I'll just leave these here." Brittany's voice tailed off and Santana was just staring wordlessly, beseechingly. As the other blonde turned to leave Quinn pushed herself off the counter and grabbed Brittany's arm.

"No Brittany, stay. I was just... I didn't know how to make her feel better, because I didn't bring any gummy bears and she doesn't listen to me the way she listens to you, she never has."

She didn't realise she was pleading until she heard her own voice sounding foreign in her ears. The dancer looked past her to where Santana was still standing there helplessly and Quinn felt like an outsider. She had never seen the Santana like this around anyone else, and she was damned if she was going to let Brittany-and-Santana become something else that she fucked up. It almost felt _noble_ if she pretended she was doing it by choice.

She owed them both that much, despite the feeling of something clawing at her chest, screaming at her to fight, certain though she was in the knowledge that next to Brittany she could never win. Santana would always choose Brittany.

"Please stay; it's not me she wants. She's yours Britt, you know that. She always has been."

She squeezed Brittany's hand trying to reassure her and apologise at the same time. Wide blue eyes locked on hers for a long moment, and she held her breath and hated herself for it. She must have passed however because eventually the taller girl squeezed back, and her eyes flicked to where Santana stood; Quinn forgotten already. Giving her a slight push in Santana's direction, Quinn she was glad neither of them saw the effort it took her to smile as she slipped out shutting the door quietly.

She didn't want to linger and eavesdrop, so she went to the end of the corridor, sitting down on the cheap carpet where she could lean against the wall. It wasn't as though she had anywhere else to go, and tackling anyone heading for the twelfth floor bathroom seemed as good a place to be as any. For the first time in a long while she was sure she was doing the right thing, and she focussed on that, letting the knowledge swell inside her to fill the fresh hole in her chest.

It couldn't though - it never had before - and something about that seemed disgustingly ironic.

Of course she would be the only person able to lose someting she'd never had in the first place. In the darkness though, when no-one could see, she had let herself pretend, let herself think of Santana, at least in part, as _hers_.

She wondered when the point was that there was more empty space than substance, and whether she could pass it and not notice; patching herself together time and again until there was nothing of the original left anymore.

In the deserted hotel corridor at eleven pm, she didn't want to think about that, and tried instead to lose herself in the swirls of the patterned wallpaper because there was nowhere else left to go.

The fifth was the last time. Definitely.


End file.
